Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is the place to be if you like to write and share Japanese poetry forms like haiku and tanka. It’s a warmhearted family of haiku poets created by Chèvrefeuille, a Dutch haiku poet. Japanese poetry is the poetry of nature and it gives an impression of a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water. ++ ALL WORKS PUBLISHED ARE COPYRIGHTED AND THE RIGHTS BELONG TO THE AUTHORS ++ !!! Anonymous comments will be seen as SPAM !!!

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Today's episode will bring us further into the deep north. We will read a few haiku from Oku-no-Hosomichi, the most famous haibun ever written. It's written by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and it tells us the story about a journey he made through the northern part of the southern island of Japan, Honshu. Before this haibun was first published Basho revised it several times. It was published after five years of revising and through that revising it became one the most famous haibun ever.
As you all know haiku describes a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water, so it is very short moment and ... revision was not done as you and I have learned, but ... haiku can describe the same scene after the described moment several years later. Revising your haiku takes time, but it can give you certainly satisfaction, because maybe you choose new words, or you use less or more words. The words you choose while revising can even make the scene stronger and the feeling you had at the moment you wrote your haiku.
It is no shame to "revise" your haiku ... it can make your haiku stronger and more in balance. As you all know I am writing haiku since the late eighties and as I read back the haiku which I wrote at the start of my career as a haiku poet than I would certainly "revise" several haiku. Let us look at a the very first haiku which I wrote in English:

a lonely
flower
my companion
for one night

I would
question the use of "lonely" -
that is a human feeling you are giving to a thing. You may feel lonely when
there is only one of you (do you?) but the flower is not alone if you are
there!

a single
flower
my companion
for one night

or

a single
tulip
my companion
for one night

A Single Tulip

has more
connotations. . . even some sexual with single / unmarried and tulip / two
lipped! And so this very first English haiku I wrote finally became:

This revision makes the haiku stronger, more in balance and even a more deeper double (sexual) meaning.

Okay ... this "preface" to another episode of "Narrow Road" was just for explanation that revising haiku, as Basho did for five years, before he published his "Narrow Road" can be great and it even can help you to improve your haiku skills ... at least "revising" haiku (especially my own) did improve my haiku skills.

There was a
temple called Ryushakuji in the province of Yamagata. Founded by the great
priest Jikaku, this temple was known for the absolute tranquility of its holy
compound. Since everybody advised me to see it, I changed my course at
Obanazawa and went there, though it meant walking an extra seven miles or so.
When I reached it, the late afternoon sun was still lingering over the scene.
After arranging to stay with the priests at the foot of the mountain, I climbed
to the temple situated near the summit. The whole mountain was made of massive
rocks thrown together and covered with age-old pines and oaks. The stony ground
itself bore the color of eternity, paved with velvety moss. The doors of the
shrines built on the rocks were firmly barred and there was no sound to be
heard. As I moved on all fours from rock to rock, bowing reverently at each
shrine, I felt the purifying power of this holy environment pervading my whole
being.

I wanted to
sail down the River Mogami, but while I was waiting for fair weather at
Oishida, I was told that the old seed of linked verse once strewn here by the
scattering wind had taken root, still bearing its own flowers each year and
thus softening the minds of rough villagers like the clear note of a reed pipe,
but that these rural poets were now merely struggling to find their way in a
forest of error, unable to distinguish between the new and the old style, for
there was no one to guide them. At their request, therefore, I sat with them to
compose a book of linked verse, and left it behind me as a gift. It was indeed
a great pleasure for me to be of such help during my wandering journey.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A wonderful stage I think, but there is a lot of discussion about that second haiku "such stillness". How can the voice of a cicada pierce the rocks? There are a few explanations for "such stillness" which I love to share here with you, that is by the way the reason why I also reproduced the romaji translation of this haiku.

The Ryushaku-ji temple is a mountain temple with long paths through dark, old cedars and rocky pathways. The number of steps down, for example, from the summit to the main building of Risshaku-ji count out to 870. The crags there are of volcanic rock and rather porous. There is a possibility that Basho is speaking about a sense that these rocks mute the sound of the cicadas in comparison to how they sound in the forest.

A poem by
Tu Fu says, "Cicadas' voices merge together at an old temple." Basho
further enhanced the poetic beauty of the scene by introducing the image of
rocks absorbing the voices. --Moran (1713-1779, haiku poet and chief priest of
Myoho Temple in Shimousa)

Not a
single sound was heard at this quiet place, except the voice of the cicadas
that was so forceful that it seemed to seep into the rocks. --Sanga (Haiku poet
who wrote a book on Basho in 1793)

If my
sensibility is reliable, there should not be many circads here. -- Mizuho
(1876-1955, tanka poet and classical scholar)

I disagree.
The whole mountain is filled with the cicadas' screech. -- Watsuji (1889-1960,
philosopher and scholar, an "intellectual leader of his generation")

In the word
shimiiru ["to seep / stain into" -- Wallace] we sense motion in
stillness, and stillness in motion. Basho, with his consummate art, captured
this oneness of motion and stillness in a short poem. -- Ebara (1894-1948,
scholar of renga and haikai at Kyoto University) (Source: here)

A lot to contemplate about I think. It was really a joy to create this episode and I hope that it will inspire you to write haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form. Here is my attempt to catch that silence in the second haiku also:

3 comments:

Superbly constructed analysis - I do enjoy such posts! So interesting discusion. I am sure if a group of us were sitting at a temple near a brook, the conversation generated by such haiku could go on for hours, quite peacefully..

Basho (1644-1694) once said:

[...] “When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.” [...]

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IMPROMPTU VERSE

Sometimes a haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form comes in mind just in one eye-blink. Those poems I call Impromptu-verses. Here I will publish these Impromptu-verses. Today's Impromptu verse: (11)

fragile beautyclimbing against the fencemoonflower straightenswith her snow white blossomto the Summer moon

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Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Carpe Diem is the place to be if you like to write and share haiku (or another Japanese poetry form like e.g. tanka). It's a family of haiku loving poets.Japanese poetry is known as the impression of a short moment, say a heartbeat or an eye-blink, in which nature plays an important role.It's free to participate in Carpe Diem. By participating in Carpe Diem, you agree with the use of your work in the exclusive e-book series of Carpe Diem.Of course your work will be credited as Carpe Diem always does. However all the texts and works at Carpe Diem are copyrighted and the rights belong to the authors.

March 20th 2016

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